Holy smokes: it’s almost like lightening striking twice. Of course, this article is slightly more about Mia Farrow than it is about C.A.R., you have to admit, that it’s a bit bizarre that it should appear in the press twice in one week (and major western publications, at that).
This may have something to do with the campaign that the UNDP and OCHA have been running here: in the past two years, the number of NGOs operating in C.A.R has increased from four to over 30. The people here are seeing a huge influx of foreigners . . . coming in and doing humanitarian work — although most of it is actually happening outside of the city, in the northern part of the CAR where there are hundreds of thousands of so-called “internally displaced people” (IDPs) and refugees from the conflict in Darfur and southern Chad. Unfortunately, the situation inside of the city has basically degraded ever since France left in the 1950s. The roads that are here are the ones that the French built. The buildings here are the ones that the French built. The other infrastructure here is largely what the French built (save the power infrastructure and some other exceptions).
That said, the city itself is very very run down:
This is almost at the city center (1 km away). And this is about as developed as it gets here. There aren’t business in those building: most of it is empty. Children roam the street begging for money — and once one is upon you, five, 10, 15 more show up from out of nowhere. There are people walking all over the place, but not many cars, and, really, not much going on.
I just back from lunch from a great Senegalese restaurant — it was inside a house, nestled on the outskirts of one of the many shanty neighborhoods that, ultimately, are Bangui. The proprietor was very nice (although I’m sure it helped that the friend who took me there had been there several times herself), and gave us a spicy chicken dish over rice. Anyway, what is kind of shocking is how little commerce there is here. In the other developing countries I’ve been in, there have always been tons of street vendors, people walking up to sell you whatever it is that they have . . . here, it’s, well, slower.
Oddly, though, the city feels safe. I mean, not safe in the sense that you’d want to raise your family here (Central Africans don’t want to raise their families here either — which is why most of those that are educated and have the where with all don’t), but in the sense that it doesn’t feel any more dangerous here than parts of New York. Just dustier.
